In view of Haryana Government's resolve to achieve the desired standards of ‘ease of doing business’, Haryana State Pollution Control Board (HSPCB) has further simplified the procedures for grant of Consent to Establish (CTE) and Consent to Operate (CTO).
Haryana Environment Minister, Captain Abhimanyu on Sunday said that as a result of simplification of procedures, there has been a drastic decrease in pendency of CTE and CTO in the past six months. The Board processed 1,586 applications of CTE and 7,201 applications of CTO during the past one year.
He said that the industrial units and projects covered under the red and orange categories of highly polluting and polluting nature are required to obtain the CTE and CTO under the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981, and Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, and Authorization under Hazardous Waste (MH & TM) Rules, 2008, from the HSPCB. A time limit of maximum 120 days has been stipulated in these Acts and Rules for deciding the applications received by the Board for grant of CTE and Authorization.
He added that the State Government has increased the clearance period of industries in the red category from two years to five years and in the orange category from three years to 10 years.
The Environment Minister said that efforts are being made by the Board to clear the applications much earlier than the prescribed time limit of 120 days, that is, within a period of 90 days. In the past six months, the time taken to decide such applications has been considerably brought down. On April 16, 2015, as many as 796 cases of CTE and CTO were pending for more than 90 days. This figure has come down to 150 as on October 16, 2015.
Capt Abhimanyu said that in the context of streamlining and simplification of procedure to deal with and decide the consent applications, the Board has recently prescribed the time limits for clearing the applications for CTE and CTO at the level of different officers dealing with Consent Management, so that all the applications, except in exceptional cases, are decided within a period of 60 days against the prescribed time limit of maximum 120 days to facilitate the entrepreneurs to establish their projects without any delay and to operate with valid consent. The necessary orders in this regard have already been issued.
He added that presently, all applications are decided at the level of chairman of the Board involving various levels of officers in processing the cases. The HSPCB has delegated the powers to all the regional officers of the Board in the field to decide the applications for CTE in the case of seven types of industries and projects and for CTO in case of small-scale industries in the orange category, so that less time is taken by the Board in deciding the applications and they are decided in 60 days. Necessary directions in this regard have been issued by the Board, said the Minister.